Re - "as much as".

: Re - "as much as".
: Sorry but when I tried to post a follow up I could not get past the password box.

:
: I apologise for taking so long to respond to the comments you have all so kindly offered.

: The other 2 choices were "no less than" & "not less than" and this was in an English test in Japan.

: I believe the consensus to be that "no more than" & "not more than" are the same in this particular case so there were 2 "correct" answers.

We very much appreciate your response to our replies and to our queries. Your surmise about two correct answers is correct. The difficulties Japanese youngsters may have learning English in Japan are nothing compared to the difficulties American youngsters will find if they wish to learn the Japanese language. There are extremely few schools that offer it, except in some colleges and universities. In the town where I live there are courses in Japanese for children, but they are for the children of Japanese people living in this area (Princeton, New Jersey). The Japanese children hereabouts have no difficulty learning English--they quickly become very proficient in it, since it is the language of their courses in school. But their families wish also to maintain the language of their homeland and of their culture.
SS